Skybound
by sunling
Summary: In the end, a bear who was a king and a queen of the witches wait together.


Originally written and posted as a stocking stuffer for Yuletide 2009.

**Disclaimer**: _His Dark Materials _is (C) of Philip Pullman.

**Rating**: **T** (PG-13)

**Category/Genre/Characters**: one-shot; vignette, drama; Iorek Byrnison, Serafina Pekkala

**Timeline/Spoilers**: Vague futurefic.

**Summary**: In the end, a bear who was a king and a queen of the witches wait together. (900 words)

* * *

"Bear came plummeting from the sky and left his likeness there in its curve of black iron," whispered the witch-queen in his ear. His side rose and fell as his breath escaped into the midwinter night, the air so frigid it burned.

She was juniper bramble and bubbling creekwater, the flash of starfire and the cutting north wind, in the prime of her power as he had grown old. She sat with her bare ankles folded and her bow laid gently across her knees. Her voice sang and hummed as she continued, although the clipped phrases carried the cadence of his folk.

"The images of Bear and She-Bear circle the North Star on a steady course to remind their offspring of their origin. He landed on the thick branch of the pine-tree and gouged its bark and wood with his crescent mark to mark the place of his tumble. Crossing the worlds of Sky and Earth, Upper and Lower, Human and Animal, Bear left his sign to remember. Once he taught his children the secret passages between the worlds.

"Each _panserbjørn_ hears the voice of Bear like a distant thunder when his time draws near. Some take the call in human lands far from the icy woods of their birth. Others are summoned in battle and die in the full glory of their strength.

"A _panserbjørn_ chooses his skull-tree at a young age. He walks the woods and mountains until he finds the pine that will be his memorial. Then he carves his name-sign so deep that the elements or the slow dense growth of the northern trees cannot erase it. The bear tells only his closest blood kin where his skull-pine lies, so they will hang his skull upon it when his days are done."

"You remember it well," he said, and felt the creeping tightness in his chest close in on his heart. The plate of his armour pressed deep into his matted fur and chafed against his ribs, rising, falling.

She smiled a heartbreaking smile. "I can repeat it to your heart's content, but I cannot be Yambe-Akka to you, old friend."

"I have no skull-tree," he rumbled. "The killing of kin carries the penalty of tearing down the tree. Once carved, the name-sign is done."

The walk had been long from Svalbard. He had passed on the kingship and was now free of it, so when the murmur of the next world passed through his sleep, he drew himself up and went into the cold. The guards would not stop him. The smell of death had lingered around him for weeks, and his people had waited with stoic dignity for him to leave.

She had found him halfway to the place he had chosen. She stepped lightly on the snow, but the frozen glaze upon it held even his weight. Bear would be ambling the woods tonight.

His breath rasped in again, out again.

"I do not need Yambe-Akka," he said. "My body will feed the carrion-eaters."

"The skull and the armour," she said as if he had not spoken. "You have a long climb ahead to Bear's abode."

His tree was gone. There were no sap-scented boughs to grasp on the ascent to his forefathers. It only saddened him now as he could hear the low growl of Bear's voice in the unsteady rush of his own heart.

"Make your farewells, old companion," he muttered. "As my people have done. A _panserbjørn_, as you forgot to mention, faces his end. I have no need of company."

"Do you wish me to leave? I had thought to take my branch of cloud-pine and see how close to the iron roof of the sky I could soar!" Her eyes glittered in the darkness. "I cannot murmur the secret of the Grandmother in your ear, but I can ease your climb."

The grim laugh from his throat brought blood. "Do you have so little patience, witch?"

"I shall sit here until the forest has eaten its fill of you. I shall hunt for my own life, but a witch's spirit is tied tight, and her arms are strong. I will do this for you out of old love, if you do not scorn it, Iorek."

Her voice had the strength of iron and the softness of a stroked cheek all at once. Arduously he looked up to see her as a silhouette in the starlight. His nose seemed to be clogging, with cold from outside and gummy heat from within.

"I thank you," he said at long last. She was no bear, the wind-borne mistress of the wild-hearted witches, but she stood in the steadfast row of companions that ran sparse down the years of his life. She was perhaps the last of them to be alive. He had lived a long, full life, seen much outside Svalbard, and grown wiser for it. Now he would die a _panserbjørn_, the weight of his soul still on his back. He would have his skull-pine, higher than any branches of earthbound trees.

She nodded. After a while, she began a song of her own, flitting into the night on swishing-soft notes. He listened to her voice and waited for Bear's call to claim him.


End file.
